I came across a thread on DearCupid where a young guy was struggling with existential crisis and love. His rant reminded me of my teenage years – when I thought I had the world figured out but still got wrecked by the chaos of emotions and relationships. In response, I told him something that took me years to truly understand:
Love is selfish.
Most people recoil at that idea because we’ve been conditioned to believe love is selfless, pure, and noble. But strip away the poetry and sentimentality, and what’s left? A desire to give to another person because it makes us feel good to do so.
Love is always about getting something in return. Even when we sacrifice for someone, we do it because it fulfills something within us – whether it’s a need to nurture, to be needed, or to feel significant in someone’s life. Acts of love, no matter how altruistic they appear, are ultimately driven by our own emotional and psychological needs.
It’s not a bad thing – it’s just reality.
The problem isn’t that love is selfish. The problem is that people refuse to acknowledge it. They expect unconditional devotion, unwavering loyalty, and fairy tale perfection, yet they don’t realize that all relationships operate on an unspoken exchange of value. The moment that balance shifts – when one person gives far more than they receive – love starts to feel like a burden rather than a bond.
I used to believe in the idea of love as something pure, something sacred beyond logic or reason. But then I saw the truth: We love because we need to be loved in return.
That doesn’t make it any less real. It just makes it human.
The Delusion of Selfless Love
People claim they don’t need anything from their partner – that their love is freely given with no expectations. That’s bullshit. If someone truly loved unconditionally, they wouldn’t care if their partner ignored them, never reciprocated affection, or even betrayed them. Love wouldn’t require exclusivity, commitment, or effort.
Yet, we do care. We care deeply. We want attention, security, respect, passion – whether we admit it or not.
That’s why relationships fail when those needs aren’t met. It’s not because people “fall out of love.” It’s because the balance of give-and-take has been disrupted.
If love was selfless, breakups wouldn’t happen. Jealousy wouldn’t exist.
But they do. And they always will.
Understanding a Person, Not a Gender
Another thing that stood out in that thread was the guy’s struggle to “understand women.” As if women are some singular monolithic entity with a universal set of instructions.
People don’t need to understand “men” or “women.” They need to understand the person in front of them.
Every relationship is unique, and the moment you start treating someone as a category rather than an individual, you’re already setting yourself up for failure. You don’t need to understand women. You just need to understand her.
Chemistry doesn’t come from memorizing rules. It comes from learning the nuances of the person you’re with.
Love is a Choice, Not a Destiny
We love who we choose to invest in. That’s the real “soulmate” concept – someone we consciously decide to commit to, not some cosmic predestined force.
Love isn’t magic. It’s not an accident. It’s not fate. It’s a series of deliberate choices.
- You choose to nurture it.
- You choose to fight for it.
- You choose to walk away when it’s no longer serving you.
And the truth is, love is as fragile or as strong as the people involved. A relationship can be shattered by neglect, insecurity, or resentment just as easily as it can be strengthened by effort, patience, and understanding.
But at the end of the day, we love because it fulfills something within us.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Final Thoughts
Love isn’t some divine, self-sacrificing force. It’s raw, human, and deeply selfish. But that’s not a flaw. It’s what makes it meaningful.
We love because we want to, because it makes us feel alive, because it gives us purpose.
And when love no longer serves that purpose – when it drains us rather than fulfills us – that’s when we walk away. Not because we’re cruel, but because love should never be an obligation.
It should be a choice.
my cat’s breath smells like cat food
That is great… Did the cat beg for more afterwards?
o_O OMGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSh! Is she giving that dog head?!!!!!!! >
Oh yeah! OH YEAH! Hey isn’t one of your dogs an aggressive one? Has he done anything aggressive towards you? 😉
“Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle-aged, and the mutual dependence of the old.” ~John Ciardi
OMG!!!! hose that dog down.
Your bit there…
][“LOVE IS SELFISH. The fact someone wants to do things for someone they loves is another aspect of selfishness. They simply want to have the feeling that they are doing something that gives their partners or otherwise something that make them feel happy. In turn, this gives you happiness. LOVE IS ALWAYS about getting something in return. Just as hate is ALWAYS about getting something in return.”]]
REminds me of something I said to you a couple weeks back while replying here.
It does, indeed…. Doesn’t it? 😉
Love is only selfish when it is wrong and hate protects us from our fear;)
So…you fall in love, to make the other person happy? I don’t see how love isn’t selfish. We fall in love, and because of how it makes us feel, we accept and celebrate it. Granted, we do lots of things for the only purpose of pleasing our mate, but everything, and I MEAN everything, comes down to how we, ourselves feel about our actions.
Feed the poor. It’s selfless, yes? Until you realize that in the end, the person doing it, is only doing so cause it makes them feel good about themselves. Their final thought could be, “Did >>> I
And why the hell ws that cut off? *rant*
“” “Did I do enough?”. It is always about the ” I “.
Yes… thats when its selfish.Love is all about giving.You are not expecting anything in return unless you think of it as give and take.It begins to be selfish when feelings of jealousy comes into it and you try to change the person you love to suit yourself.
I was thinking….Love has many faces,lust,infatuation,crush.Some people mistake these for true love.But saying that we are human and selfishness does come in to it at some point.
Well “selfishness” is often associated with negativity, but the way I see it is that it doesn’t have to be a negative thing in the first place, per se. “Selfishness” can also be associated with positivity. Just that, when people have the effect of desire switched on, selfishness is the sole property of the thing that drives desire. Without selfishness, there is no desire. Thus, if there is no desire, there is no love.
When a person wishes to do something to cause or aid happiness for someone else, there is the effect of desire in place. Thus, there is the effect of selfishness switched on. Selfishness can be defined as something that you do or cause that results in giving you satisfaction of some form. If you wish to cause or aid in the happiness of someone else, even if it causes you pain in one form or another, you are still getting something back in return, and that thing that you get back in return will satisfy whatever your emotional and mental chemistry wishes to achieve in the first place – even if it causes you torment and/or distress.
😉